3/23/2006

I'm not going to even quote the article's main parts, as they're pretty much cut-and-dried reporting standard for SCOTUS decisions.

But the following is annoyingly bad:

LOCAL REACTION TO THE RULING

• Women's shelter: Ann DeLaney, executive director of the Julian Center, a shelter in Indianapolis for battered women, said the decision will hurt prosecutors trying domestic violence cases. She said that because women are sometimes intimidated about testifying against their abusers, investigators try to gather as much evidence as possible to prove the allegations so a woman's testimony isn't needed.

"If an officer walks in the house, he can see it in disarray. He can see that the phones are pulled out of the wall," DeLaney said. "That's all important evidence to a case. This is a setback."

...well, here comes the right's spin tactic on this: "The unelected liberal black-robed activist judges of the Supreme Court hate women and want them to be abused." I'm not really surprised that this kind of red herring shows up in the article - it IS from the Indy Star, which is far-right garbage.

Maybe this woman could think for a few seconds before spewing this kind of reactionary garbage. If she thought, she'd realize that - get this, sports fans - the cops can get warrants pretty easily based on evidence. Judges, from what I've observed these past 22 years, have no love for domestic abusers. Besides, it's garbage anyhow. Justice Souter got it (and, naturally, Bush's butt-boy Roberts didn't):

Roberts said the decision "apparently forbids police from entering to assist with a domestic dispute if the abuser whose behavior prompted the request for police assistance objects." Although Roberts has disagreed with other rulings since joining the court in September, it was the first time he wrote his own dissent.

Souter called Roberts' concerns about domestic violence a "red herring."

"This case has no bearing on the capacity of the police to protect domestic victims," Souter wrote. "The question whether the police might lawfully enter over objection in order to provide any protection that might be reasonable is easily answered yes."